If you ever come across me, I’ll give you a dollar if you know what the hell I was thinking when I woke up that morning. Well, I should up the ante, because it's really unlikely that you will. I’m kind of a genderfuck. Maybe. You could probably call me that. I bind everyday, but I’m obsessed with eye makeup, and wear that pretty much everyday, too...if I have time to put it on. I also keep my nails long…and my hair short. And I wear unisex or men's clothing. I want to pass for…I don’t know, something? A person? My goal is to keep you guessing. I’ve had people call me sir, "correct" themselves to ma’am, and then go back to sir. Usually they eventually apologize and try to pretend it never happened. I, for the most part, end up pleased. I get looks of disgust, or confusion, and then I get those looks of surprise when I see people that I haven’t seen in months (or years) who have noticed my chest has suddenly dropped a few cup sizes with no explanation. Some people are disappointed. They can deal.

Let’s talk about this makeup thing. I really like it. It’s pretty much face painting, except less…gross. I am not Insane Clown Posse. They’re not even a posse. You need at least two other people to have a posse. One is just a wing man. They apparently do not understand this. Or magnets.

Insane Clown Posse aside, eye makeup can be pretty fun. I have a plethora of colors, probably about 75 or so different pots or pans of that wonderful stuff. That's just the high quality stuff. I have a couple pans/quads of stuff you can buy at Target or whatever. Yeah, that's a lot. No, I am not a professional. Not yet. I have no real reason to have so many colors, but I do, and it's put me back about $1000. At least. It's accumulated over the years, but still. That's a lot of makeup. And I actually use most of it.

Like I said, I'm not a professional. But I like to think I'm pretty good. I have pretty decent brushes and my friends always want me to do their makeup. But without a certificate from a cosmetology school, I'm not going to get a job. But, pretty soon, I will be entering cosmetology school. As soon as I get my breast reduction. FO SHO. Are you excited for me? I am. I'll finally be able to do hair and makeup and nails for my friends' and relatives' (and other people's) weddings and make lots of money. And cut friends' and family's hair on a regular basis. Other people's hair, too. Money. Money for when I'm not going to school and am only working in the office twenty hours a week. Money when I get a night and weekend job at a salon. And I will, since I cut hair and do makeup pretty well without formal training so I can only get better, right?

Well, people usually assume I’m female once they see that I'm wearing makeup, but when I went on a visit to a the cosmetology school I'm probably going to go to, some weird stuff went down. I got major compliments on my eyeshadow from the director. We chatted a while, and then she said that I would make a good wedding makeup artist. She said that I would get a lot of clients and make a lot of money if I got a certificate from the school. She was very friendly, but when she talked to me about the school, she always corrected herself when she mentioned that the students were “girls,” “gals,” or "ladies," et cetera. She tried to make a point that there were male students as well, but it was awkward for her to say it. She said it like it was unusual and somehow difficult for her to mention it. Maybe it’s because she didn’t know how to gender me because of my blatantly obvious (and purposeful) mixed messages, and she was trying to be sensitive. She knew my birth name, but, well, seemed uneasy. Seriously though, I'm going to be the only non-"gal" at that school as far as I can see.

Similar things happen at the makeup stores. I like really nice makeup so I get my eyeshadow at M.A.C or Sephora. That's why I'm so broke from accumulating my vast collection. The clerks either stare at me like a freak and leave me alone, or they read me as a femme gay man, or as a woman who is presenting quite unusually, but who is strangely attractive in a "cute boy" kind of way. If they get past the "freak" impression they come up and tell me to work there. Whether they read me as a weird guy, a weird girl, or something else entirely, I've been asked many a time to work at the makeup stores by various employees. No one really knows what I'm going for presentation-wise, but usually they don't really give a shit. See, I’m confusing. On purpose. Oh, how insensitive and horrible and mean I am. But I doubt my antics truly harm anyone.
My being "insensitive and horrible and mean" gets me ID’d a lot, because I seriously do look like a boy wearing makeup. One time I was first in line for a show at First Avenue. Yeah, I go there all the time. Because I'm awesome. If you didn't already know, that's where "Purple Rain" was filmed. Yeah, with Prince. But that's kind of irrelevant to the point I'm trying to make. I just wanted to add it as a fun little side note. But yeah, before I could hand the bouncer my ID, he yelled to a guy inside, "Hey, can you get me a Sharpie out here?" I said, "Hey, well, I'm actually 21. See? So can I have a wristband now, so maybe I may consume some alcoholic beverages while inside your fine establishment?" Okay, I didn't say it like that. But I did put my ID in his hand and said, "Hey, I'm 21. You don't need to give me X's."

Seriously, people even ID me at the mall to check if I’m over sixteen. So obviously I don't look like a woman in her early-twenties (ewww I just called myself a woman), I look like a fifteen year old boy in makeup stuffing his C-cup sports bra. I sound like it, too. I have a deep-ish voice that cracks (and jumps an octave when I answer the phone at work…) and I tend to swear a lot. I’m so immature. A perk of looking like a teenage boy (well, I think it’s hilarious) is that my boyfriend, who is in his mid-twenties, looks like a cradle-robber.
Oh, look at the time on my pocket watch! I need to go rainbow up my eyelids and hit the road.

Kirk out.

Creative Commons License